Researchers receive future prize for innovative MRI
A team of researchers from Erlangen has been awarded the German Future Prize 2023 for the development of a new type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) device. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier presented the prestigious award to Stephan Biber, David M. Grodzki and Michael Uder in Berlin on Wednesday evening. Biber and Grodzki work for Siemens Healthineers AG, Uder is Director of the Institute of Radiology at Erlangen University Hospital. The company and the university have already been in the running for the Future Prize several times.
MRIs have recently become ever larger and therefore more powerful in order to provide better images of the inside of the body for diagnosing joint damage, heart attacks or tumors, for example, according to the Zukunftspreis website. The team has now succeeded in taking high-resolution and medically meaningful images with significantly weaker magnetic fields. This has significantly reduced the complexity, costs and high weight of the devices. This has not affected the image quality. The first device was tested at the Institute of Radiology at Erlangen University Hospital. A new class of such MRI scanners has now been installed in around 40 countries, for example in Brazil, India and Angola, the developers report.
The German Future Prize is endowed with 250,000 euros and is an award for technology and innovation. Market maturity is a prerequisite for the prize. The winning team competed against two other teams: A Hamburg team further developed a space technology to avoid CO2. Researchers from Dortmund focused on making gas burners more efficient, especially for industry.
The innovative MRI developed by the researchers has garnered them the German Future Prize 2023, recognizing their significant contributions to the field of Science and Research. Furthermore, the new MRI scanners, equipped with weaker magnetic fields, are now being used in various countries globally, demonstrating the impact of their groundbreaking Research.
Source: www.dpa.com
